this is the first time I have ever tried making a cat lose weight....

myfamily

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I have 3 cats, and I am always happy when they eat. My worst fear is that they stop eating, I suppose. My 9 year old girl, Flower, is overweight. She has been for years. Everybody thinks she's pregnant because her stomach is large, and skims the ground. Lately I've noticed she never wants to go outside, and she has started snoring when she sleeps, something she has never done (I've had her since she was 1 year old... she was skinny when I got her). I took her to the vet, he checked her anal glands, but didnt do blood work because he said she had blood work done about a year ago when she got her teeth cleaned, and everything looked good. (I should have insisted... that was a year ago, afterall). He agrees with me that she might feel more energetic if she loses weight. She weighs 15.4 pounds. He said to cut holes in a plastic water bottle such as Aquafina, and put her food in there so that she has to work to get the food out. I have removed the endless open dishes of dry food from the house, and started feeding her about a tablespoon of wet food a few times a day (and a little dry food). She drinks plenty of water from the fountain I bought. I figure her ideal weight should be about 12-13 pounds. So I'm going to try and get her down to 13. It's kinda of scary because I don't want to screw up. Do you have any other suggestions?
 

GoldyCat

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Losing weight would most likely make her more healthy, but you don't want to take it off too quickly. One way to do it is too figure out what nutrition/calories she would need to maintain her ideal weight and feed just that much.

If there's a huge difference in the amount she's been getting and what you decide she needs you could take it down in steps.
For example: A=previous food amount, B=goal amount. Start out giving and amount halfway between the two for a few weeks, then gradually decrease it until you reach the goal.

Do not put her on a crash diet as starvation causes all kinds of other medical issues in cats.

Good luck with your Flower.
 

mrsgreenjeens

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The water bottle trick is a way for her to get some exercise as well, and it's a good idea. Many people do that even with thin cats because it also exercises their brains :)

Ask your Vet how many calories per day she should be eating if you don't already know, then be sure to monitor her intake, including any treats she gets. And feeding her wet food is great. It's more filling than kibble, unless it's filled with carbs, but most wet food isn't. The less fillers in it the better. Best of luck. One of my guys went from 16 lbs to 12 lbs, but it took a long time because I, too, was afraid of causing more health issues.
 

FeebysOwner

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Hi. I would also get a scale and weigh her once a week. Chart her weight as well as the caloric count of what you are feeding her so you have an idea of how many calories it takes her to lose weight and at what rate. Unless the vet advises you otherwise, I would try to keep her weekly weight loss to no more than 3 oz. Over a month, that is still 3/4 of a pound, which to me is drastic enough.

If you have any idea how many calories she was eating when she was allowed to free fed on dry that would go a long way in determining how much to cut her intake to start off with. As noted above, it really should be gradual to begin with for 2 reasons. 1.) to prevent her from feeling like she is hungry all the time, and 2.) to ensure the weight loss is slow.

Btw, while her stomach may decrease in size during her weight loss, part of what you see that 'skims the ground' is called a primordial pouch - that will not go away regardless of how much weight she loses.

Good luck. Keep us posted!
 

danteshuman

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You need to be careful about putting cats on a diet... to large of a calorie distraction can harm or potentially kill a cat. So I would first measure exactly how much (& what) she eats every day.

Then I would ask a vet to calculate how many calories she needs to eat every day to slowly loose weight.

Lastly I would switch her (slowly) to all wet or a raw food diet. Dry food has carbs in it. Cats evolved to eat meat NOT corn or wheat or potatoes!!! Reducing her carbs will improve her health in other ways & will also help to prevent her from developing diabetes.


⭐Learn from my mistakes! Only give her one flavor of wet food while she is on a diet. Otherwise she will snub one flavor after another.

⭐ You could try a healthy wet good but I compromise with my cat : he eats 90% wet and he gets to eat fancy feast or my bff or thd occasional lickable treat. He flat out refuses any & all blue buffalo. He wanted fish everything so I look for fish & chicken or tuna & beef foods where they are already mixed. Yes fancy feast is the McDonalds of cat good but it is still healthier for a cat then eating dry food.

Exercise will help kitty slim down. You want to get her running eventually. So play with her! Play for 10 minutes 3-6 times a day. Also harness training her and taking her for a walk will get her moving.
⭐When I play with Jackie I get him moving by moving the wand or throwing the toy so he has to climb things up-across-down-under-over . It helps them use all their muscles and tire them out. I use it to tire out hyper cats but it will work to help chubby cats burn calories to!

I would look up myself cat from hell’ episodes where Jackson puts the cat on a diet.


Good luck! Oh and a
treat or two a week won’t kill your cat.
 

sweetblackpaws

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" I have removed the endless open dishes of dry food from the house, and started feeding her about a tablespoon of wet food a few times a day (and a little dry food). "

I am not sure how much "a little dry" food is, but she may not be getting enough calories. You must diligently monitor her calories. To restrict them too rapidly in a big girl could result in hepatic lipodosis which can be deadly. Please get with your vet and/or start researching online and keep careful records of her caloric intake.
 

danteshuman

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Though trial and error I have found that cats (& Jackie) consider 1.5 oz a meal (half a fancy feast can.) Your average cat will need at least 6oz of wet food plus some. Every day. Jackie (a teenager) eats 6 oz of wet and About 1/16 of dry food every day. Cats prefer to graze all day or eat small meals. So I feed my spoiled kitty 4 meals a day and he snubs some meals ... only nibbling and then filling up on dry. Once he hits 2.5 years I will know he is completely grown and can ditch the dry if I still want to.

if you could give her 3 meals a day that would be great. The first step to getting your cat on adiet is to establish meal times (even for dry food.)

⭐Jackie just gets 4 meals because I’m home all day. So I feed him at 6 am and go back to sleep 🤣
 

sweetblackpaws

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A good rule of thumb to start with is 20 cals per pound of body weight for weight maintenance (for an indoor cat). So at 15.4 lbs, 308 calories per day would maintain that weight. Since you want her to lose weight, I would consult with your vet to see how many calories should be reduced. But you know it will be below 308.
Chewy is pretty good about listing calorie content on a product listing.

Kibble is much more calorie dense, at about 350 per cup (depending on brand). Fancy Feast wet, for example, has only 30 calories per ounce (or 90 per can). You will get the hang of measuring her calories and it will just become routine.
 

mrsgreenjeens

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Kibble is much more calorie dense, at about 350 per cup (depending on brand). Fancy Feast wet, for example, has only 30 calories per ounce (or 90 per can). You will get the hang of measuring her calories and it will just become routine.
Just want to state that you cannot go with the blanket statement that Fancy Feast has 30 calories per ounce because it totally depends on WHICH Fancy Feast you are talking about. We don't want to confuse the OP, or heaven forbid, hurt the health of his cat by having him feed too few calories based on that statement :frown: For example,Fancy Feast Purely Naturals only have about 48 calories per tub. Just to be safe, always look at the can to see the calories.
 

cocoanlace

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When my cat Missy was alive, she weighed in at 17 pounds at one point and was solid like a little barrel. To get her weight off, I had 7 other cats at the time who free fed, I had to place Missy in a large carrier in the morning and feed her there. The other cats ate while she ate inside the carrier. After about an hour I picked up all of the other food and allowed Missy out. Did the same thing at dinner time. It worked. When she passed away a couple of years later she weighed about 10 lb. Luckily she loved wet food and dry food both, but I stopped feeding her dry food because she developed an allergy to chicken and it was so so difficult to find food that had no chicken at all. Good luck with Flower.
 

Meowmee

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I have 3 cats, and I am always happy when they eat. My worst fear is that they stop eating, I suppose. My 9 year old girl, Flower, is overweight. She has been for years. Everybody thinks she's pregnant because her stomach is large, and skims the ground. Lately I've noticed she never wants to go outside, and she has started snoring when she sleeps, something she has never done (I've had her since she was 1 year old... she was skinny when I got her). I took her to the vet, he checked her anal glands, but didnt do blood work because he said she had blood work done about a year ago when she got her teeth cleaned, and everything looked good. (I should have insisted... that was a year ago, afterall). He agrees with me that she might feel more energetic if she loses weight. She weighs 15.4 pounds. He said to cut holes in a plastic water bottle such as Aquafina, and put her food in there so that she has to work to get the food out. I have removed the endless open dishes of dry food from the house, and started feeding her about a tablespoon of wet food a few times a day (and a little dry food). She drinks plenty of water from the fountain I bought. I figure her ideal weight should be about 12-13 pounds. So I'm going to try and get her down to 13. It's kinda of scary because I don't want to screw up. Do you have any other suggestions?
I am having the same problem with Merlin too. He was about 15 pounds last August and they said he was obese.
After several months of exhausting, hard work, medications, 1000s in dvm etc , and more,I finally cured him of all of his stomach problems and diarrhea. I started to try to get him to lose weight- I have him totally converted to a home-cooked diet now and some fussy cat lower sodium canned food grain free. But he just wants to eat nonstop every time I go into the kitchen he is screeching at me and I always give into him and give him a little bit and I think he’s gaining back what he lost.

He was an outdoor cat who I rescued after he bit me. He loves playing but I have not been able to play with him and Quinn for the past eight weeks or so because I have had terrible pain in my back and I am recovering from Covid pneumonia. It seems like this pain is never going to go away but he and my cat Quinn play with each other quite a lot so he does get some exercise. I noticed when I did play with him it seemed to help cut down on his appetite maybe.
 

minish

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+ 1 all of the above. in my constant efforts to have minish lose weight, i found out my "iron will" is the most important component.
 

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My first cat was overweight to, 15lbs when she should have been 11lbs. We found the only thing that helped was a wet food diet. Even when we tried diet dry and some wet lol. Wet food is pretty much the best way to get them to lose weight just because of the carbs that is in the dry food.
 

zoes

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I think you're on the right track by removing the big bowls of dry food. Dry food is like eating chips or dry cereal - you can eat a LOT before you feel full. Wet food is like eating a cohesive, healthy meal of whole foods, and it's hard to eat endless amounts of that.

I have a cat who was on the cusp of becoming overweight. I was finding it really hard because she always acting hungry, and it just bummed me out.

The vet recommended a prescription kibble diet but I hated the ingredients (and the price) and I honestly didn't think it would work, and I didn't want to get into counting calories and weighing portions for my cats (I do it for myself already and that's more than enough math for me!)

What worked like a charm was switching to wet food. I did loosely monitor to make sure she was eating wet food every day. She still gets a tbsp of of dry food in the morning as a "treat", but I basically free-feed wet food now - I also mix in warm water to add volume to the food. In two months, she lost the extra weight (probably just 1-2 lbs - her weight has now stabilized, she is not underweight) without ever coming into the kitchen and yelling at me for kibble.

So, I'd try that. Just feed her wet food. You can give her kibble in an exercise ball or bottle with holes drilled in it for some exercise and mental stimulation, but see how she does on a diet of mostly wet food. I wouldn't curb her caloric intake, let her eat as much as she wants as long as it's within reason - do monitor to make sure she's eating roughly the right amount (for my cats in 2 puck-sized cans per day, give or take.) Weigh her again in a month and see if it's helping.
 

danteshuman

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Yeah I fed Jackie all the wet food he wants at 6,12,6 & 12. He also has a very small bowl of dry food where I give him a 1/4 cup scoop every 2-3 days. Jackie’s kinda petite by body structure and at 19 months weighs 13 pounds.

He eats 2 3 oz cans a day. When I feed him a 6 oz pouch I add a little water because it takes him close to 8 hours to finish it. That or I take out half his pouch and seal his other half in a Tupperware container to keep it fresh. ⭐Yes I nuke his refrigerated food for 5 seconds then stir it, to bring it up to room temperature.

Last night Jackie wanted some more after finishing his pouch so I gave him a 1/3 of a can to keep him full until breakfast. I would rather he wet then fill up on dry. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I like the idea of her working for her dry food!
 
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